#why i write disabled characters

[brightlotusmoon]

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[varyathevillain]

no joke but what I really want for Buddy Daddies as a fandom is to make fanart and fanfic post present time ep12 where Rei wears an arm orthosis when working.

I think varied disability aids being represented would be fantastic, and personally would write Rei as someone being deeply proud of something he's done for his family, but also understanding with time that using an orthosis also helps him at work and in raising Miri. with a giant portion of mobility/motorics aids being represented by prosthetics, seeing more variety and exploring it in fiction would also help making a step in normalising disability treatments.

[doyouknowthisdisabledcharacter]

Do You Know This Disabled Character?

This isn’t specific to any media. If you know only one version, vote ‘I know them’.

Song Lan was blind and is mute.

[thatonebirdwrites]

I still plan to finish my TLOK: Shared Moments series -- especially Book 3.5 and 4 at least, but I simply cannot do the pace I did last year. I can't. My health is too poor and my heart too broken. So let's talk about it.

For this post in particular, I want to discuss how parts of the Korrasami fandom broke my heart.

I also will talk about how Supercorp fandom is helping me heal. I want to be clear here. This post is not about pitting these fandoms against each other. Both have their flaws, their beauty, their awesome people, and their mean people. I love them both. This is simply my tale of how one broke my heart and how the other helps me heal that.

I also preface that there are wonderfully beautiful people I've met in the Korrasami fandom, some who have become friends over the span of the last year and a half. The kindness and care from @snazzy-korra and the Korrasami friend I talk to on Discord has been life-saving in different ways. I'm forever grateful and highly appreciative of these people's kindness and support and for the kind readers who left kind comments.

I also wish to be clear that I have always been honest in my end-notes about the fact that I have a disability, that my health might slow me down, or I may share an anecdote about my life (my disability impacts my life heavily, but it also is not all I am) to explain why I wrote a scene the way I did. Folks seemed to appreciate learning about the inner workings of the writer's mind and the research I've done. So it's why I tend to have detailed end-notes.

So when readers, who acknowledged these end-notes and commented about my bravery at being a disabled writer, turn around and viciously attack me and pull out every single ableist argument about how the character, who became disabled in my story, is now less than?

That is fucking personal.

That is them directly telling me that they don't see disabled people like myself as their equal in dignity or respect. They don't even respect me as a person worthy of being treated with kindness. Instead, they remind me yet again of how they view disabled people as less than.

Where they wanted the disability written out of the story. They wanted erasure, and thus it felt like a stab in my heart.

Because in the end, such arguments are rooted in a fear of this simple truth:

Anyone can become disabled at any time.

Some people fear that truth. Likely because they would have to face the fact that the horrid ways they treat us disabled people could be how they end up treated if they become disabled.

So instead of fixing society and the systems harming us disabled folks, and creating instead accessible and equitable and kinder systems that help all people thrive -- they instead demand erasure. Demand that people like me cease to exist in their space. That our stories not be visible.

It went beyond a fight in comments to direct messages/asks and at least one tumblr blog directly harassing me (referencing my writing as the reason). It felt like my few places where I felt somewhat safe to share my writing had been broken into and trashed.

It's sad and heartbreaking in so many ways, because these people are refusing to see the absolutely beauty and wonder that is disabled people and our creativity.

[Yes, I know the tools that can help protect me like comment moderation, but again, the point of this post isn't about fixing my behaviors.

Because my behaviors weren't the problem. It's about a very real problem in fandoms, where AUs that involve a beloved character becoming disabled turn into an avenue to cause harm to that author. (Instead, of just not commenting and not reading it.)

If this isn't pointed out or ever talked about, then how do we learn and grow and find ways to repair the fandom to be kinder? To call out hurtful behaviors and support those harmed by it? Why should we let folks suffer in silence, when we can talk about it and better support one another? To build better habits and encourage others to build those kinder habits with us?]

Becoming disabled is not a bad thing. It doesn't have to be. We are still beautiful, wonderfully creative, and awesome people who deserve the same love, respect, care, and dignity as any non-disabled person.

Ignoring or running from the pain doesn't make it go away, as I did that and instead it ended up tainting what had been a deep love.

Acknowledging the pain and/or grief and choosing to heal is what alleviates it. The Korrasami fandom introduced me to fanfiction. I'd never written fanfiction in my life before I decided to write How Was Those Three Years to dig into how those years were like for Asami.

I'd never read so much fanfiction before either. I didn't realize the wealth of creativity and wonder that is hidden in the corridors of AO3. It was a beautiful sight to behold. I discovered this truth through Korrasami.

Writing Korrasami helped me rekindle my writing again. Even with my poor health, even when I struggle to get out of bed, even as I lost my ability to do things I used to love to do, fandom helped me re-establish my writing habits. I was writing again. The one thing I love to do the most.

At least my health hadn't taken away my writing and art. Isn't that a beautiful thing to discover? I found a way to grieve what I lost but still rejoice in what I can still do. But at the same time, I've never been more hurt and shattered by a fandom than I have daring to write an alternate universe story, where I learned that the limit of people's care ends at the moment they perceive your disability.

Where you cease to be a person in their eyes.

Where you become less than.

Thus, I truly struggled on how to move forward for months, where writing became harder and harder to do.

I didn't want to lose the joy I had found, but I didn't know how to safely heal either. And I like sharing my stories. The act of sharing them was part of how I redicovered my joy of writing again.

It was here on tumblr, where I found a niche that helped me heal.

It all started with a continuation to one of @fazedlight's ficlets, which randomly appeared on my 'for you' page.

I hadn't even finished Supergirl yet at that point, but the AU in that ficlet, where Kara decides to trust Lena and reveals she's an alien due to the alien detector? How utterly fascinating way to rewrite that scene.

I'm not even sure why I felt the need to write that continuation, but it's like my fingers had a mind of their own. I felt so inspired, and after a few months of being trapped in that well of feeling utterly broken, it was like glimpsing sunlight for the first time in months.

And I found I couldn't stop. I started to write other little ficlets based on GIFs about Supercorp. I started reading fanfiction about Supercorp. I realized Lena Luthor is really just a morally grey Asami Sato, and Kara Zor-El Danvers is basically Avatar Korra. So of course it was easy to write them. I already had practice with Korrasami.

I then went and watched the last three seasons to finally finish Supergirl, and was horrified by just how bad the writing was in 5 and 6, that now I wanted to write my own fix-it fic.

But I was scared to do it. I'd already had my heart broken by Korrasami. I already had a big project there I need to finish for my own sake, because it's so, so important to my own heart.

But at the same time, should I dare to share my stories again? Put myself out there in a different fandom?

Because I can't stress enough how I had seriously considered deleting my AO3 account due to how hurt I was over Korrasami (my two Korrasami buddies kept me from doing that, and they might not ever realize their influence there. I'd downloaded all the fics I'd written and gave myself a due date to decide.)

I was scared to share my stories, and I needed support to decide if I could do it again. If I dared to do it.

Then I discovered thanks to @luthordamnvers and @snowydragonscave a server for Supercorp shippers, and Holy shit.

It was okay to be disabled there.

People from all sorts of walks of life were there. They were supportive (and such enablers, my heavens).

I wasn't seen as less than.

People treated me like a human being.

It gave me courage to start posting the stories I'd written about Supercorp to AO3, and then holy crap.

The comments from Supercorp readers welcomed me as a new writer. They were encouraging. (Sure, there was mean comments here and there, but they weren't so horrifically personal in their attacks like the few hurtful Korrasami readers.)

I wept over those comments. Those people may never know how healing it was to read kind and encouraging comments. These people welcomed me, a stray writer into their shelter, and gently and tenderly offered support, advice, and constructive criticism in ways that uplifted the author.

Sure, it's possible I'll get viciously attacked for who I am again in the Supercorp fandom, but right now, most folks I talk with in the Supercorp fandom have been kind. Mean comments haven't been so acutely personal in their attacks, and it's a reprieve that allows space to heal.

My first love - Korrasami - will always be my first love in terms of ships. This is a truth. Supercorp is second in line, but I feel, right now, it's a little safer for my heart to write Supercorp.

I do promise to finish Shared Moments, but it will take longer simply because I'm still healing.

Parts of the Korrasami fandom broke my heart, but a good portion of the Supercorp fandom is mending it back together.

That's a beautiful thing too.

The stories I write are imperfect. I know I mess up a lot. But I do hope that people walk away from my stories having learned something. Or at the very least walk away with some semblance of hope.

Because in the end, in a world that seems hellbent on reminding marginalized people of how our lives are disposable, choosing hope becomes a radical act in liberation.

Our stories deserve to be told. Deserve to be cherished.

So in conclusion, never underestimate your kindness toward others. You may touch them in ways you may never fully know.

Thank you for all my readers, who have been supportive and kind. You're helping a broken writer heal. I will forever appreciate and treasure all of you.

Thanks for reading.

[todayisafridaynight]

everyday i constantly think of masato's wheelchair and if that's his only one/main one no wonder he's so pissed at everyone

[ratcandy]

hello abled person writing a character with a disability. i see you are considering "curing" their disability in your story. before you make that choice, consider: why do you want to do that. what compels you to make that story choice. why would it be necessary. what is the narrative significance of doing that. what message do you believe you may be sending by doing that.

answer correctly or i'm opening the trap door beneath your feet and you're going into the spike pit

[the-mountain-flower]

I made a mistake 🤦‍♀️

So one of my characters becomes physically disabled during the course of the plot, ok? And she uses different mobility aids depending on her needs at the time, ok? And one of the results of the incident that injured her was loosing an arm.

One of her mobility aid options was forearm crutches. And it took me months to realize that didn't work with the one arm 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ (I recently learned that there is a way to make crutches work for one arm so Imma do research and see if it'd work for her)

Now I have to rework her entire mobility aid system bc I'm an oblivious fool and didn't fucking realize that she wouldn't use two crutches with one arm

[scattered-winter]

sometimes i see a post and its like. hm. you actually care very little about the story or characters or plot at all bc all you want is for the token male twinks to kiss.

[illputdownmyrootswhenimdead]

someone: jkr is horrible-

me: yeah, i completely agree with you there

someone: -which is why you should stan uncle rick rick riordan instead :)

me:

[brightlotusmoon]

Someone couldn't understand how my spastic body could hate stretching, because she loved stretching, to her it felt wonderful, that's mostly what she knows.

I, doing leg lifts on the couch, will consistently hear my body complain when I stretch it: No. Stop. This feels horrible. I never want to do this again. How dare you. Fuck you, I am going to keep making this as unpleasant as possible.

And I don't know if a body is supposed to do that to itself. All the time. Every time. It's just my life. I'm okay when someone else stretches me, but doing it myself means putting up with myself as a cranky toddler each time. Which probably means I need a slightly different approach overall than most people. Because I am still not most people and I am also not alien. People sometimes seem surprised I exist the way I do.

My conversation partner wondered if it was like having a cramp. I said "Constantly. Forever. Unless you're on good drugs and then the release is just temporary. It burns. It hurts. Until you die, I guess." And it took her a while to reply and she said that she hadn't thought about it like that because she had been doing yoga since she was a kid, so for thirty years. She thanked me for the education and said she had a lot to read about.

[whumpacabra]

There’s a post going around recently about how the whump community tags for disabled characters and I…have to disagree with its main point.

Simply tagging a post with ‘disabled whumpee’ does not give me enough information to know if a fic will be validating or triggering for me. I need more specific tags to filter out my squicks and triggers, and to identify posts of interest. Specific tags are the keystone of a community that specifically talks about potentially triggering or upsetting content.

For example, I like reading stories with characters that use prostheses and mobility aids. I find these stories relatable and validating as someone with both! But should those posts simply be tagged ‘disabled whumpee’ because it might conflict with the other users of the mobility aids and prostheses tags? I can only find out the nature of the whumpee’s disability by reading, and a negative outcome can at best turn out to be a waste of time or at worst deeply upsetting.

Cancer is a difficult topic for me given my past and current experiences with it. I have the cancer tag and a dozen variants of it blocked. Of course, people on tumblr with cancer or talking about their experiences with it use that tag to talk about it. If someone is writing about a character who has or had cancer, but only tags for ‘disabled whumpee’ I won’t know that I’m getting into a story that will cause me great distress.

I’m disabled. I have severe nerve damage, limited mobility, chronic pain, a plethora of other medical bullshit, and my condition is progressive. Whump is part of how I’ve been learning to deal with and process my struggles, and part of that involves writing and reading about disability in whump.

Do I just block all ‘disabled whumpee’ content and never know if I’m clicking on a story I’ll find relatable and validating or if I’m clicking on a story that will upset me so badly I won’t use tumblr for a few days? No - I block specific tags and specific blogs as necessary. The idea that we should stop using specific tags, when writing about a specific condition or disease, to put everything under one vague blanket is naive at best and dangerous at worst.

I understand the frustration of seeing posts you don’t want to see in a specific tag (the number of x reader headcanon blogs for fandoms I’ve never heard of that I’ve had to block when trying to browse is ridiculous). But at the end of the day if those posts are tagged appropriately (ie. not crosstagged spam in violation of the TOS) you just do what you always do for something you don’t want to see on this site: blacklist, block, and move on.

[vanilkaplays]

And so it starts. Somebody in the BG3 fandom sees a post they don't like by somebody who probably hasn't even finished the game yet to know the full context, and they need to be like, "Is anyone going to make a callout post about that?" and don't wait for an answer.

[commsroom]

Happy belated birthday! Just wanted to hop in again saying I love your posts about Wolf 359. They’re all so good.

I’m on a relisten again and am at the end of season 3. And I’m thinking about how fascinating it is that Hera remembered the Thanksgiving with her at the table physically. And in a post if yours I read recently or you posted recently you talked about Hera getting a human body and I think that scene kinda hints at maybe wanting to be physically there? Idk.

If you’re up for it you can share your thoughts on this. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and leave you with some of my Wolf 359 thoughts.

Sending you good vibes over the internet.

thank you; you're always so sweet!! 💙

we're absolutely on the same wavelength here, too!! that scene in particular is a big reason why i feel like hera would want a body - what it says about her self-perception, sense of physicality (even without experience to contextualize it), and... as a result, that she experiences physical loneliness. and, notably, that all of those things are subconscious framing in what she misremembers. i've posted about that scene before here, and in my... way too long essay about hera here, which i'll try to paraphrase a bit. and in other places, too, probably! i think about it a lot.

so: i think there's a big difference between existing differently (which can be isolating in itself, but... through lack of understanding) and feeling like she's always being kept away from the others - somewhere else, physically. she clearly conceptualizes herself in that space as within the hephaestus, separate from it and the systems she runs, the same as everyone else. that's the difference between "other people need to change their attitudes" and... well, other people still need to change their attitudes, but there is also something fundamental about her circumstances that she's unhappy with and needs to change.

(and, obviously, like... because you know i see hera as a trans woman, i think some of the parallels you could make to medical transition are pretty clear in that framing, too.)

minkowski says “you weren’t here with us [...] we were over here, and you were over there” but minkowski would never actually say that - from her perspective, hera was as there with them as she's ever been. but if hera doesn't feel that way - if - like the sound design suggests - she's always hearing their voices the way they hear hers... if she's always felt that she's somewhere else... then it's hard for me to imagine there's a way to resolve that without giving her the autonomy to physically interact with the others, to be seen the way she sees herself - and that's something i think is really highlighted in the finale, too.

[isekyaaa]

I can understand when people want a minority protagonist, but when it's a diverse cast people look for first when choosing authors, books, or movies it's this certain level of weird in which getting their social justice points in for the day matter more than the actual story. Not everywhere follows the logic of California.

[danny-chase]

dc has so much wasted potential it kills me